Our finished liberalism and adoption piece is titled, "The Liberal Roots of the Modern Adoption Movement."

Here are the first few paragraphs. (To read the rest of the essay, please click on the link at the end. It will take you to Gazillion Voices.)

Please leave any comments you might have either here or at the end of the article in Gazillion Voices.

THE
LIBERAL ROOTS OF THE MODERN ADOPTION MOVEMENT

by David Smolin and Desiree Smolin

INTRODUCTION

Gazillion
Voices provided us with the assignment of writing
something about liberalism and adoption. We accepted the assignment largely
because we agree with the purposes of Gazillion
Voices to provide a platform for “adoptees and their allies” and to provide
topics and content that will “reframe and reshape the conversation about
adoption.” We like to think that we are among the allies! Nonetheless, the
topic is awkward for us for several reasons. First, as long-term critics of
adoption systems, we have tried to appeal to legal rules or broadly shared values,
rather than to a narrow set of values that appeal primarily only to a specific
group. The primary exception, our work on the evangelical Christian adoption
movement, involves us as evangelicals critiquing evangelicals, using the
religious beliefs we share with that group as a common basis for communication.
Second, while we would characterize ourselves as political moderates, it would
be more accurate to say that most of our adult lives have been spent in
difficult spaces between political and other contesting groups. Unfortunately,
in addressing the subject of liberalism and adoption we are stepping into new
territory likely to make even more people unhappy with us.

Adoptees,
of course, like all people, run the
spectrum of political, cultural, and religious perspectives. Nonetheless, much
activist adoptee discourse critiquing various aspects of adoption has employed
popular or scholarly language that is progressive, liberal, or “left” in rhetoric,
reference, and tone. Added to this tendency has been the new wave of largely
progressive critique of the recent evangelical Christian adoption movement. Further,
activists addressing the long history and current circumstance of Korean
adoptions are often reacting against elements of American and Korean culture
and practice that are variously religious, conservative, and traditionalist. All
of this can give the impression that
disputes over adoption, or specific aspects like transracial or intercountry
adoption, are primarily left-right disputes.

We
argue, to the contrary, that the modern adoption movement has become embedded
in all major streams of American culture. (In referring to the “modern adoption
movement,” we are focusing on the popularization and expansion of adoption in
the post-World War II era, including both intercountry adoption and domestic
adoption.) Indeed, liberal and progressive thought is at the center of the
modern adoption movement. Thus, any attempt to “reframe and reshape the
conversation about adoption,” as Gazillion
Voices and many others seek to do, must address the liberal roots of the
modern adoption movement. We further challenge activist “adoptees and allies”
who identify themselves as progressive, liberal, or left politically, to take
the lead in critiquing the role of their own self-identified
cultural/political/religious paradigms in the modern adoption movement. Adoption
discourse that merely reinforces religious, political, or cultural identities
and prejudices will become swallowed up in the broader fragmentation of
cultural and religious values, and will do little to actually reform
adoption.

CONTEXTS

Politics, religion, and
culture have become embedded in intertwined identifies defined in opposition to
stereotyped images of enemy others. One such polarization is between secular
liberals and evangelical Christians, who so often vilify one another. Yet, as to adoption,
secular liberals and evangelical Christians fundamentally agree and, indeed,
have agreed for years. This agreement is sometimes hidden by differences in
vocabulary and justifications, with each side using rhetoric that the other may
sometimes find repugnant. The agreement across this polarized divide is a part
of a broader American consensus on adoption, from which each group draws.
Americans share a common understanding of what adoption is, a common belief in
the “facts” of adoption, a common view of themselves and the “other” in relation
to adoption, and a common undifferentiated belief in adoption as the best
solution to many child welfare problems. This American understanding reflects a
naive blindness to the roles of self-interest in adoption, a disinterest in the
power/privilege/gender inequality/class/wealth-differentials that drive and
have always driven adoption, as we understand it, and a common ignorance of the
history of the institution of adoption.

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Contributing Fleas

Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

Adult Adoptee Voices

"We are not commodities. We are children that were torn away from our countries, our parents, and our culture. We are not the newest fad. We are women and men who forever have a hole that cannot be filled. We have voices, and we use them to express our outrage, our bitterness, our anger, and also our joy,our love,and our lives. To learn from us is to listen to what is, sometimes,underneath."

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

"We are not animals to be bought and sold,"

--Ana Escobar, a Guatemalan mother whose baby was stolen from her and who suspected her child was funneled into the International Adoption system. Ana diligently searched for her child through pending adoption paperwork until she found her--with a false identity and fake DNA tests--waiting to be processed for adoption by a US family. After a new DNA test confirmed Ana was her child's mother, the two were reunited.